Attorney General Pam Bondi hosted a forum on Wednesday with the family members of people whose federal death sentences were commuted by President Joe Biden during his final days in office — the latest step in the Trump administration’s longshot campaign to convince district attorneys to bring state capital charges against those 37 people.
The invitation sent to victim family members claimed that the commutations “undermined our justice system and subverted the rule of law,” as well as “robbed the victims’ families of the justice promised.” Bondi held the forum for “victims’ families to express how the unjust commutations of these violent criminals’ death sentences affected them personally,” according to a copy of the invitation viewed by HuffPost.
Despite the administration’s rhetoric, new death sentences at the state level are unlikely, if not impossible, in most of the clemency cases, according to experts.
Fifteen of the 37 cases involve crimes that occurred in states that either do not allow the death penalty or do not carry out executions, like California. Eleven other cases involve crimes that occurred on federal land, which could complicate efforts to bring state charges. Some prosecutors have already indicated they are not inclined to pursue a costly and time-intensive capital trial in a case where the defendant is already going to die behind bars. Even in jurisdictions with prosecutors who are eager to pursue new death sentences, many of the cases are decades old, meaning key witnesses and pieces of evidence may no longer be available.
“These men pose no safety threat to anyone and will die in prison. They are being punished already,” Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said in an interview. “Prosecutors, if they seek a new state death sentence, will be diverting scarce taxpayer money and tremendous resources to achieve a result that is purely political and harmful to the victims’ families they say they care about,” she continued, citing the potential trauma of enduring another capital trial and lengthy appeals process.
The Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment.
During President Donald Trump’s first term, he carried out an unprecedented federal execution spree, killing 13 people, several of whom had pending legal claims. Project 2025, the policy blueprint for Trump’s second term, envisioned executing every person on federal death row. But shortly before leaving office, Biden commuted all but three federal death sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Trump, left with a near-empty federal death row, lashed out at the clemency recipients, writing, “GO TO HELL!” in a Christmas Day post on his Truth Social platform.
On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order calling for a dramatic expansion in the use of the federal death penalty and directing the attorney general to evaluate whether the 37 people whose death sentences were commuted could be charged with state capital crimes.
The executive order also directed Bondi to ensure that the 37 clemency recipients “are imprisoned in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.” Several of those men have since sued the administration, alleging officials are engaging in a “sham process” to send them to the country’s most restrictive federal prison, the so-called ADX in Florence, Colorado, regardless of their behavioral histories or medical needs.
Prosecutors in jurisdictions where the crimes occurred in at least three cases have said they do not plan to pursue state capital charges. The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office in Missouri told NBC News it had determined that additional state charges against clemency recipients Billie Allen and Norris Holder — who were convicted in the death of a security guard during a 1997 bank robbery — “would not enhance public safety” and “is not in the public interest.”
The Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office in Texas said the case of Julius Robinson, who was convicted in 2002 of killing three people, “is not viable for a capital murder prosecution” in the county.
Last month, a Louisiana prosecutor secured a first-degree murder charge against Thomas Steven Sanders in the 2010 death of a 12-year-old girl. Sanders was indicted in Catahoula Parish, a rural parish with less than 9,000 people. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill (R) indicated in a social media post that the state would provide financial assistance in the prosecution of the case.
Like the U.S. population at large, the loved ones of homicide victims are not monolithic in their views on the death penalty. Although some reacted to Biden’s commutations with anger, others praised him for stopping more people from being killed.
On Wednesday, Bondi inaccurately told Fox News that Biden had “pardoned” the 37 people previously on federal death row, which, unlike a commutation, is an expression of the president’s forgiveness and removes restrictions around voting and holding office. In fact, Biden granted commutations, which reduced 37 death sentences to life sentences without parole.
“These men have now been sentenced to another kind of death, which is to die in prison,” Maher said.
